Most Confident
by Babyuknowme13
Summary: Various Vikings try to put into words what their thoughts on this once a century change are. A very basic look into the heads of our Viking friends about Hiccup and the snowball of changes around them. On the bright side, this is very constructive towards getting rid of my writer's block.
1. With a Barrel of Ale

Someday, when Hiccup comes of age, he's going to sit those two down with a barrel of ale and lock them in a room together until he starts hearing drunken singing. The thought comes to him slowly over years spent teaching his best friend's son to be a blacksmith and listening to said best friend complain about the boy's flightiness. It was kind of funny the first twelve times, but he's starting to get a little uncomfortable with how often they echo each other, despite never sharing more than a sentence or two a day.

"He never listens!" That could be terribly true. He's seen it before. Father and son will each say something but it's like their having two different conversations. That's not so bad in and of itself, but, Gobber reminds himself, when it gets to the point that it happens _every_ time he sees them speak together, then it's a little creepy.

"He just doesn't understand!" Frankly, Gobber doesn't understand either, half the time. When it comes from Hiccup, well, some things make grown men uncomfortable. When it comes from Stoick, well, sometimes it's just better not to say anything at all.

The one he absolutely draws a line at though is this one.

"We're Vikings, it's an occupational hazard." It takes five minutes of watching his apprentice dodge huge fiery blasts of super-heated death before that one lodges itself in his brain and he remembers why it sounds familiar. He immediately shoots an accusing look at his friend, who's not even paying attention by the way, and then inarticulately groans.

"Every bit the bullheaded, stubborn Viking you ever were." He decides once and for all.


	2. An Air About Him

The leg suits him somehow. It isn't that the leg is different than every other prosthetic, like what most of the villagers speculate. None of them really have the vocabularies to describe how it just sort of _fits_ Hiccup. They landed on an outcropping a few clicks south of the village for a quick break. It was the first time Hiccup had been up in the air with them since the battle with the Green Death. He knew that everyone else noticed right away, as soon as Hiccup dismounted, how the leg just seemed to fit, but he was probably the only one who could explain why.

That leg fit Hiccup just like the tailfin fit Toothless. It was probably the symmetry of the thing, Fishlegs reflected. Meatlug was slower than the other dragons, so he was always a few wingspans behind them. That was fine by him, it let him notice more.

They'd all been prepared for just about every reaction they could think of. Astrid had been very strict about following her lead when Hiccup woke up. They'd expected a little whimpering, maybe. Snotlout had actually bet on some sarcastic blame slinging. They'd been ready to tiptoe for all they were worth around the subject. They'd been ready to let Hiccup get angry, get violent, and had been prepared to take any verbal abuse he slung their way, no matter how good he was at slinging it.

Frankly, Fishlegs noted, none of them had expected such passive acceptance. Losing a limb was a big deal in their community, and there was usually a set of guidelines for how to deal with it and the people who'd lost them.

Hiccup had wrinkled his nose at the strange design and mentioned tweaking with it, and then he'd hopped onto his dragon and taken to the sky with them. Now he was leaning back against his dragon, watching clouds float by and so clearly at peace that they were all a bit awed. Hiccup might not have noticed, he was good at ignoring things that made other people uncomfortable, but he had an effect on the rest of the teens.

Fishlegs knew that Hiccup had a way with dragons. As far as he was aware there were only two places where Hiccup felt confident, and that was the blacksmith's forge and the kill ring with the dragons, or maybe the sky. The thing he was trying to pin down in his own thoughts though, the thing Fishlegs was relatively certain no one else could even put into words, was that Hiccup had a way with people too, now that he'd found such easy confidence with dragons.

It was an unintended consequence of their upbringing. Fishlegs wasn't immune to it, despite logically knowing what was going on. Hiccup just had this new air about him that no one else had anymore. The last few weeks had been stressful for all involved, learning to get along with their new neighbors. The villagers were walking on egg shells about as well as could be expected from Vikings. Logically, they might know that dragons were no longer a threat, a flash of scales weren't reason to start a battle cry or to hide the livestock, but they were so conditioned to be on their guard around the reptiles that seeing someone so relaxed in their company had an odd effect on them.

Hiccup relied on his dragon as he got used to his new leg, he absently patted a passing Nightmare and let a Terror climb onto his shoulders and the other Vikings _saw_ this and Fishlegs was able to see their reaction. They'd tense at first, amazingly similar to a dragon caught near the fishing boats, and then they'd _almost_ sigh and the tension would drain away. Just _seeing_ Hiccup around town or zipping overhead was usually enough to calm down everybody's nerves. He had that effect on them now, in showing how confident he was that an attack wouldn't be coming from the monsters around him.

Times were unsettled, they were still on the threshold of old and new, and Vikings did not experience change easy. They got defensive, put up their guard and kept their children in reach. In times such as these, the history books that only he ever seemed to read said that their people looked to the most confident warrior among them.

Hiccup was only confident in the forge and around dragons, and dragons were _everywhere_ now. By default this meant that Hiccup was now the _most confident warrior among them._ People were looking at him for clues. _Should I be apprehensive? Should I take the kids inside? Should I grab my mace? Should I step back and take another look at the situation?_ They read his body language to judge whether they should be worried, scared, angry, or relaxed.

The leg suited him, Fishlegs decided, because it was a sign to every villager on Berk that Hiccup was a warrior. It was his battle scar. If Hiccup could face down the most terrifying beast that any of them had ever imagined, and then walk around with their personal camp fire story in broad daylight, then that meant they didn't have to be worried about these changes at all.


	3. Changing Worlds

Stoick sometimes feels as though he washed ashore on some sort of illusionary island. One day he set off on a quest to find the devil's nest, leaving his son in dragon training and leading men who are only there by virtue of their distaste for his son. When he comes back a few weeks later, everything's different. People are singing praises to his offspring and even though every building is where he left it, he suddenly can't find his way around anymore.

The only thing that's the same is Hiccup. He finds his son in the forge, lying with his head on the desk as Stoick himself has been known to do after a hard day's work. The only thing missing is a tankard of ale. He tells his son how proud he is and gives him the only memento of his beloved wife left. He's not sure what he's expecting, a request for advice in the kill ring, excited tales of dragon attacks that didn't end in disaster, or maybe even a few lines about a pretty girl. Stoick would've been glad to talk about any of those.

The only thing that hadn't changed while he was gone was Hiccup, and his relation to him. They are just as awkward as ever, and Stoick bids a strategic retreat after a few minutes of silent panic. He sighs, blithely satisfied that they even got that far, and walks to the house.

The only thing that was exactly as he left it was Hiccup. The day that should've been one of his proudest, watching his son slay his first dragon, quickly transforms into a horrible nightmare. Later, on another ship about to embark on another quest he looks up at the Cliffside and notices Hiccup staring down, and it feels like he's being judged and the Gods are finding him wanting.

Slim hours later he realizes that he's led his men to their deaths. The monster isn't a dragon, is too great, too ancient, to be anything other than a malevolent God that he has offended. His limbs shake as they hadn't since his first battle, his palms are sweaty. The thing is so monumentally huge that the world can't contain it all at once, and his entire universe shifts.

The only thing the world hasn't displaced is Hiccup. The battle is long, in ways he doesn't quite understand. For the first time in his life he sees the chief his son might grow up to be, leading his peers into battle with a calm assuredness that has made their line chiefs for three centuries. His voice doesn't shake, doesn't waver, his gestures are sharp and focused and his plan effective.

Somewhere in the ash he realizes that the world has become strange and alien to him. There are still vague memories of watching Gobber tend his son, of directing some men to repair the ships enough to make them sea worthy, and to this day he isn't quite sure how he kept from shaking to pieces. All that mattered was his son, safe, and his men, home. Those were his only motivations, the only things that kept the sun moving in the sky and kept land and sea from switching places when he wasn't looking.

Three days later he feels a bit more like himself again. Three weeks later his son wakes up and he gets a few guilty seconds of vindication at his dumbstruck look of disbelief. The moment he took his eyes off it, the world changed into something he could only vaguely recognize.

There are dragons sleeping on rooftops, sunbathing in the plaza. There are teenagers mounting them and riding off into the sky, hooting and laughing and calling to their friends. His son limps out into this bright new world that has replaced everything he's ever known and Stoick has the insane urge to say _Welcome to my world._


End file.
